by Vivek Mehra
Seven Shades of Grey
By
Vivek Mehra
Contents
Prologue
1. New Rules for the New World
2. A Kolhapuri Mirchee from Bhopal
3. The Great North / South Divide !
4. The Beginning of Change
5. The Bombay Babe
6. Solitary Man
7. East Meets West
8. Insanity – Dark Grey
9. The Problem
10. The Picture Reader
11. Black-Rimmed Glasses, Twins and Professor
12. Three Shades of Grey
13. Hiroshima
14. Selfless Love
15. The Miracle
16. Seven Shades of Grey
Prologue
What is it about being a first-time father that is so exhilarating, and yet so frightening? I can not know, I have yet to become one. In about an hour or more I will and join the ever-growing race of ordinary men transformed to ‘superman’ dads. My wife Dolly has just been wheeled into the labor room, an antiseptic sanctum sanctorum. An hour ago the first spasms hit and we knew it was time to take this exhilarating, frightening and yet natural journey. Even though excitement engulfs me, the shadow of confusion is not far away.
About seven months ago I was more exhilarated, and not at all frightened of this, oh so natural a phenomenon. The reason was simple: it had not happened naturally to me!
Out of ten years of our marriage, eight long ones had been spent desperately trying to have a baby, without success. The years seemed to last ten centuries, ten lifetimes. Anxiety coupled with hope and ending in catastrophic disappointment had been a vicious cycle following us dogmatically. I had lost count of the doctors and clinics we had anxiously visited, each offering hope of deliverance, each turning out to be a bigger disappointment than the first. Then mysteriously it had all changed. I still remember that day as if it were just yesterday. Years of pain, anxiety and disappointment had vanished in a flash. Exuberance soon gave way to bewilderment that continues to dog me even today.
Only a long-married childless-couple could understand the thrill an unexplainable and sudden pregnancy brings about. Only a parent-to-be can understand the fresh set of anxiety that envelops one the moment the wife is wheeled into a labor room. And right now I am all of this and more. The more I try to rationalize, the further away I seem to get from the truth. Trapped in the quicksand of my past, the more I struggle to free myself, the deeper I sink.
When all hope was lost, joy as evasive as sunlight in the middle of a dark moonless night, nothing one could say or do would calm shattered souls. And yet the darkness had vanished, the morning sun rising making flowers bloom, taking us in swift flight to the edge of the earth where a rainbow bridging heaven and earth revealed a pot laden with gold, at least to these two hapless souls. As I stand now in the waiting room in the maternity wing of the hospital, I have time to kill, to try to rationalize what happened, to unravel the mystery that has plagued me for the last few months.
I have to get free of the quicksand!
As a dutiful son, I have informed the respective grandparents to be, and they are on their way. As a dutiful husband, I am at hand should my wife need me. As a dutiful friend I have informed all my friends, at least those that I could. As a human being, I am excited at the prospect of becoming a father. As a soul doomed to trudge this planet trapped in a human body, I am as confused as ever.
What was it that triggered this miracle?
Why did scores of qualified and dedicated doctors fail and suddenly nature succeed?
What had happened to me in the last year or so?
Had I become a confused soul or an enlightened one?
Had I lost my sanity or just discovered it?
Strangers became friends on a new planet I chose to inhabit - the Internet. Their words of wisdom, support and prayers comforted me, became a part of my other life. And somewhere in this duality that I chose to live I had been rewarded by the imminent birth of a much-awaited child.
And there was one among them, the one that fused with my soul before being lost forever. Words hammered on an unknown keyboard, hooked to an unknown computer, manned by a stranger, linked by an umbilical cord called Internet had first predicted this miracle to me.
A miracle is defined as “an act of supernatural power, a remarkable event”. To me the Internet was man’s greatest miracle. Not one person on this planet ever believed or conceived the impact that it would eventually have; not one would believe the impact it has already had.
Did I discover the true meaning of love or could I say that I had learnt an eternal truth? Or was I suffering from an acute case of dementia! It is my past that I must go to, if I still seek an answer. And yet the one, who first predicted that I would be a mute spectator to The Miracle in my personal life, had dissolved into nothingness in cyberspace, just as mysteriously as she had appeared on it. One miracle dissolved in another, and yet left another for me to behold.
Who was she?
What was she?
The answers lay in the events of the past months. Somewhere buried deep, shrouded by a veil of my ignorance, lay all the explanations that my weary mind seeks. They happened over a span of many months, but are fresh even today, alive in my thoughts, etched in my memory, part of that which makes the complete me. Many months that taught me more than some learn in a lifetime, many months that compressed more than several lifetimes of achievement, one miraculous event, one fascinating world, and the rest of my life remaining with just one purpose: to understand what really happened.
Will I ever know?
Will anyone ever know?
1. New rules for the New World
It was the month of January eighteen months ago and I was in the middle of a crisis: a crisis as heavy as a millstone round my neck, one that I believed was not created by me, one that I believed was resolvable. And yet it hung around my neck, sapping my strength as I hung on to the wheel of life spinning uncontrollably.
I was born in a family of traditional industrialists who had made their fortune in the budding textile industry that started with India’s independence from the British. It took four decades to create the name, the fame, the fortune and less than one to see it all systematically plundered and ruined. Like crumbling ramparts of glorious yester-year forts, all that was left was the land that had been acquired for a pittance and me the eldest son of the eldest son of my grandfather, the caretaker of my father’s share.
To my wife I was a loving husband - as loving as a hot-wired ticking time bomb could be. To my parents a dutiful and thoroughly incompetent son hell-bent on squandering the last of the family’s already plundered fortunes. To the extended family once created by my grandfather, an educated bankrupt fiendishly tying to conceal his business failures by sucking life out of ancient family property; a leech diligently at work. To the community I was an impotent man - a price catch for eunuchs perhaps, married to an equally barren woman - the fruit of my ‘sins’; both thoroughly incapable of giving the family a much needed MALE heir.
I had a fledgling business of my own, a sorry excuse not to join the family one. It was another in a string of fledglings, one that I hoped would finally correct past failures. I had been ‘blessed’ with a short string of those. My attempts at doing business in India were fraught with disasters and as with all disasters there were always two opinions of how ‘it all happened’. My education in the United States of America had merely taught me what I should not do, providing scant support as I dealt with the plethora of incomplete paperwork, the city’s mammoth bureaucracy, and my father’s instant fiery temper, more instant than instant coffee.
When the going was good I had every Tom, Dick an
d Harry’s uncle advising me on how “it” could be and should be done. When I dissented from their opinion I was a renegade, a hotshot with more brawn than brain. And when I followed their advice leading to disaster, I was quickly branded the foreign educated idiot.
A hundred Pontius Pilates cloaked in robes of Judas surrounded me; a hundred rats running for cover the moment I ran into problems; a hundred pointing fingers proclaiming ‘HE DID IT!’ And I did do it. I had to be possessed by a serious bout of insanity that made me discard a secure life meticulously constructed in the United States of America, to come back to India to my family, to wallow in failures one after another. There was no greater emotional fool than I.
My personal life was no better.
I was happy in marriage, as happy as a fairy king married to a fairy queen living in fairyland. And yet there was sorrow omnipresent spreading dark clouds over fairyland. The king had his reasons and surprisingly the queen had, in stark contrast, her own. She pined for a child. And I was reduced to a ticking time bomb.
Our meager resources had been spent experimenting with doctors. Over the years it was a small fortune squandered. At family gatherings I would see her moist eyes watch toddlers gurgle in their mother’s arms, their tiny hand gestures normally deemed meaningless, looking like obscenities directed at me. In hushed tones I heard the elderly wonder whether she was woman enough to bear a child or was I man enough to give her one. At moments like these, western education went for a walk, eastern restraint crashed and burned in a flash, tears welled in my eyes, and helplessness engulfed me. No one saw flesh and blood try to adapt to a changed environment. Not one helping hand reached to comfort me. No one saw the attempts; failures were all that mattered.
‘He can not do it, because he did it!’
In India, as in the East, a child is the symbol of manhood, of womanhood, of fertility and success. It mattered little that those who fathered legitimate children had also a few illegitimate ones augmenting numbers at orphanages and remand homes. It mattered little that those who had a baby-making machine handy could hardly make the first one happy before the second or third was on its way. It mattered little that those who had fathered an heir had also brought the entire clan to the brink of financial and emotional bankruptcy. And I tried to live in my own fairyland with my fairy queen.
A semblance of peace lived in my comfortable office, a small lab, and an average commercial production area. I had chanced upon an ink formulation that was impossible and expensive for commercial production or so experts believed. My scientific bent of mind and my spirit of adventure gored me on to try to succeed where others had failed, a scientific Don Quixote of sorts. It was supposed to help me focus my energies on productive chores leading to riches and yet the stress to succeed, in at least this one venture, was snapping at the heels of my sanity. It was in this frame of mind that January arrived at my computer terminal.
I had used the Internet extensively to assist me in researching the formulation and success was like lusting after Miss Universe; I could see but not touch or possess her. It was around this time that a seemingly aimless web-cruise brought me to Yahoo Chat! It had started innocently; me tired of looking at chemical equations, not interested in the Net’s ‘virtual’ sexual content, needing some realistic mental stimulation. And I got more than I bargained for. From a scientist using the net for productive purposes I was soon to transform into a Net junkie hooked onto chatting with strangers with strange IDs and even stranger lives in cyberspace.
I remember that the first few weeks of Net chatting were uneventful even though I engaged in resplendent conversation with more than a dozen people scattered all over the globe, or so they claimed. Miss Universe was still enticing; slowly shedding her evening gown to don a string bikini, arousing and frustrating me in quick succession. I alternated between working in my lab putting research material to good use, to pounding my keyboard locked in conversation in a chat room. To myself I justified the chatting as mere stress busting and not time wasting. ‘After all,’ I said to myself, ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and Vikram a stressed-out kitten prancing on a hot tin roof, ready to lose his mind.’ When I entered the virtual world of Net Chat, Miss Universe was forgotten. Words flowed in response to those that my keyboard generated. It was stimulation of a different kind and as addictive as smoking. When the cigarette was extinguished the high soon dissipated and I was left gasping for more.
After what seemed to be an eternity, on a Friday I chanced upon a room titled ‘Married and Flirting’ among the various listed at Yahoo Chat! I had learnt to check the profiles of people chatting with me and had become an expert at reading between the lines, avidly interpreting information that was conspicuous by its absence. I was watching the screen, bored with what I saw when an ID called AlfaRomeo66 entered the room - the ID presumably of a car nut, most probably a male in his thirties, or so I thought. That suited me just fine because I was also in my thirties, loved cars, and discovered it was better to chat with this age group than with the teenyboppers that frequent other rooms. I clicked on the ID and asked to view its profile. The program opened a new window in my browser and the profile came into view.
It was a female in her mid thirties who loved cars! It’s my lucky day, I thought. A female chatter entering a ‘Married and Flirting’ room was as rare as gold lying unclaimed in Times Square.
I hurried back to the chat room eager to start a conversation with her before any other prospector staked his claim. The ID I used is the one I have always used and is a part of my name, Vikram Singhal. I still remember the first words that we exchanged.
VikSin: Hello alfa ...
AlfaRomeo66: Hello vik ...
VikSin: Greetings from half way around the world.
AlfaRomeo66: Half way around the world? Where are you from?
VikSin: I am connected from India.
AlfaRomeo66: wow that is half way around the world
VikSin: Where r u from?
AlfaRomeo66: from Canada.
VikSin: I have been to Canada … used to live in the States for awhile ...
AlfaRomeo66: u did? where ... ?
VikSin: New York City was studying there ... lived there for 5 years...
AlfaRomeo66: a big city boy … lol
VikSin: ha ha ha, u could say that. What is lol?
AlfaRomeo66: lol = lots of laughter … so what did u study?
VikSin: oh chemistry related stuff ... u can tell I am new at chat … thanks for lol
AlfaRomeo66: hmm so am chatting with an intellect here … lol … u r welcome
VikSin: don’t know how much of intellect is left though … lol ... what do you do?
AlfaRomeo66: I am a domestic engineer … lol ... a fancy name for a housewife ... lol
VikSin: lol ... never heard that before.
AlfaRomeo66: how come you went back to India?
VikSin: I am an Indian, and my family was here ... I had to come back.
AlfaRomeo66: oh ok ... and now what do you do?
VikSin: I have my own company ... make chemicals
AlfaRomeo66: see, I told you an intellect … lol
VikSin: well not really, but I get by … lol
AlfaRomeo66: so what are the plans for the weekend?
VikSin: having a few people over today, and I am the one cooking … lol
AlfaRomeo66: u cook too? What are u cooking?
VikSin: mainly Indian stuff today.
AlfaRomeo66: you mean curry? I don’t know much about Indian food … lol
VikSin: well yes, cooking mutton today.
AlfaRomeo66: sounds good to me.
VikSin: listen alfa I have to go now, can I email you ... ?
AlfaRomeo66: I don’t email on the first date Vik ... lol
VikSin: this is the first time I have heard this … lol. good one. So how do I get in touch if I don’t have your email address?
AlfaRomeo66: you don’t use Yahoo Pager?
VikSin: what is that?<
br />
AlfaRomeo66: it is a cool system with which you can keep track of your friends and you know when they are online. Its available at the main Yahoo page, you should download that and add my id to it. I will do that with yours.
VikSin: never heard of it.
AlfaRomeo66: and the best part is ... its free ... lol
VikSin: that is good. Will do that right now or Monday when I log in.
AlfaRomeo66: but remember my id and will catch you on Monday if I log on..
VikSin: will do
AlfaRomeo66: ok bye nice chatting with you.
VikSin: yes ... same here. My email is [email protected] u can use that.
AlfaRomeo66: ha ha but I don’t email on my first date … lol
VikSin: u are funny … lol
AlfaRomeo66: yeah but it’s true … lol catch u on Monday … tell me how the party went.
VikSin: sure will ... bye
AlfaRomeo66: bye
This brief interlude was not that different from the others I had had before. And yet the tiny differences were too stark to ignore. I was online with a woman, my male heart still fluttering; new and free software was brought to my attention - one that worked faster than email - one whose existence was hitherto unknown to me; no profanities, or abusive language, two individuals touching upon personal life - a rarity on the Net; not a hint of cybersex or impregnable beliefs on any specific issue - the core of a chat room’s existence.
It was a first in many ways: one small step on the Internet, a larger one in understanding humans, a colossal one in diminishing anxiety and yet eventually whisking me away like an uncontrollable roller-coaster, headlong into confusion and insanity.
*
At the turn of the twentieth century, a computer was just a fantasy, one that some believed in and most others scoffed at. Humanity was like a mammoth beast hibernating for eons then gradually awakening, rapidly wanting to make up for lost time. Urgency was as thick as a London fog hanging in the air, yet moving at hurricane speed, science its spearhead. Steam had already revolutionized the previous century; this one had to do better. Scientists with fragile sanity and deep intellect wanted humanity to soar. Life was pregnant with hope.
